Ranting On...Runner-Up Donations

HUD Secretary Julian Castro (D-TX)

This morning, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro announced that he had raised $800k, a seemingly arbitrary number he stated he needed to hit by the end of October or else he would drop out of the presidential race.  This is odd for a variety of reasons.  For starters, presidential candidates (ones who want to win, at least), don't usually set goals like this, because it demotivates voters.  They'll say things like "if we don't get $1 million we'll be outspent by our opponents" (that's really common), but they don't threaten to quit a campaign, because it doesn't speak very highly to the actual campaign at hand.  Castro isn't the only candidate to do this this cycle, however-Sen. Cory Booker issued a similar edict earlier this year, and got a similar response-quick cash, and he stayed in the race.

But the odder thing here has been around support from other candidates in the race, and voters who have stated that they aren't going to vote for Castro, but want his voice in the race.  This is something I don't recall happening in past contests, and I'm kind of curious why it's arisen.  It might be the fact that Democrats genuinely are undecided-they want to keep being able to make their decision with all of the options they had in the race.  I'm somewhat undecided-I think if the election were today I'd vote for Kamala Harris, but as there's little indication she's going to still be in the race by the time Minnesota is voting (it seems like Buttigieg, Biden, Warren, & Sanders will be my options by then), I don't have a preference yet between those four as I have caveats about all of them.  It could also be, quite frankly, psychological, with Democrats scared to death to encounter the general with the prospect of four more years of Trump, and progressives might prefer a race where the worst case scenario is Steve Bullock.

Initially I kind of liked this idea.  Castro has a unique perspective in this race as the only Latino candidate, and as someone who has been a big city mayor on a border state, as well as having served in the Obama administration.  Similarly Cory Booker is the only African-American man in the Senate (that's a Democrat), and could use his elevated platform to better argue on cable news for major legislation in the next administration.  Not to mention there's a decent chance both men will be on VP short lists-why would we not want to make sure that they don't have skeletons in the closet before then, and see how they test with voters?

But we're less than 100 days from the Iowa caucuses, and I think the time for these kinds of stunts has passed.  The reality is that Julian Castro and Cory Booker are not going to be the Democratic nominee in 2020.  You could make an argument for someone outside of the Biden/Buttigieg/Warren/Sanders cavalcade breaking out (Harris, perhaps Amy Klobuchar), but it's not going to be these two men, or any number of other lesser known candidates, and the longer we hang onto these also-ran candidates, the less room we give to test our eventual nominee in tougher debates and contests.  Shouldn't we want a debate that just features the 4-5 candidates who could actually become president, so that with longer screen-time we see if they have what it takes on direct political attacks from their opponents?

Rep. Xochitl Torres Small (D-NM)

But there's also another, more pragmatic aspect to this-money is not an unlimited resource, and Julian Castro taking $800k for a losing campaign is basically cash that would be better spent on races where the Democrats could actually win.  I'm not necessarily talking about only donating to one of the leading candidates here, either, but instead focusing on congressional candidates where $800k would make a real impcat in winning a seat.  Giving that money to someone like Theresa Greenfield, Cal Cunningham, or Barbara Bollier, all candidates that are forging plausible paths to a Democratic majority in the Senate, would be an enormous boost for the causes that Castro espouses, or to putting a gavel into Cory Booker's hand.  Democratic House candidates like Joe Cunningham and Xochitl Torres Small are two vulnerable incumbents who just took a risk this past week voting for impeachment, and they both have been outrun last quarter by the Republican field-$800k would give them an added boost, and keep two Democratic incumbents afloat in red territory.

This isn't just an issue for Castro and Booker.  Democrats giving $10 million to Amy McGrath in Kentucky is something I understand, but think is idiotic.  Democrats who want to beat Mitch McConnell would be better off going to the Senate candidates I name-checked above, candidates who actually could win their seat, rather than to McGrath, who is taking on McConnell directly but has no chance of beating Trump in a state he'll carry by 30 points.  The same could be said for donating to candidates who are assured victory like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, candidates whom if you support you'd be better off giving to the likes of vulnerable House Democratic incumbents and House challengers in vulnerable GOP seats, because those are the people that will decide whether Omar and AOC stay in the majority or not.

I get that this isn't a zero sum game.  The money that went to Castro might have either been to Castro or no one, as those candidates may have been moved specifically by his message or his candidacy.  But I'm always someone who espouses to Democrats to think with their heads and not their hearts, because thinking with your heart loses races.  It will be a damned shame if the likes of Torres Small & Cunningham lose by 1-2 points next year in races where they got outspent, knowing how much money was wasted on campaigns that ultimately went nowhere with Castro, Booker, & McGrath.  Races for Congress have certainly been decided by less than $800k before-something to consider before you donate to a candidate who has little shot at winning or whom you might not even vote for on Election Day.